Recycling is now so easy to do in Wanaka, you can even do it in the middle of the night.
Yesterday, Wastebusters opened a 24-hour recycling centre at its Ballantyne Rd premises, ending the oft-spoken-of disappointment of holiday-makers and rural residents who have made a special trip to the dump after 4pm and discovered the centre has closed for the day.
Wastebusters committee secretary Sharon Beattie was the first to use the 24-hour facility yesterday at 8am, one hour before Wastebusters opened at 9am.
Mrs Beattie was specially attired in her pyjamas for the first ceremonial unloading of plastic milk bottles, glass vodka bottles and other bits and pieces.
The recycling chutes are small windows in the corrugated fence at Wastebusters, with items sliding into large bins on the other side.
Communications manager Gina Dempster said 24-hour recycling was in demand, so Wastebusters had responded.
"With our new drop-off, people hardly even need to get out of the car to recycle.
And if they want to, they don't need to get out of their pyjamas because no-one is going to see them in the middle of the night," she said.
The service is opposite the large blue skip outside the gate to Wanaka Wastebusters.
(The blue skip is for those who want to drop off their household rubbish in blue bags after hours, and not to be mistaken as a recycling receptacle.
It is managed by Otago Southland Waste Services, a separate company).
Wastebusters general manager Sue Coutts said yesterday the team knew there were still lots of recyclable materials which ended up in the blue rubbish bags "so this is one more way to pull them into the recycling stream".
"We know that holiday-home owners don't want to leave their recycling crates in the street all week, because it marks their house as unoccupied.
Many choose to drop their rubbish off in the blue skip outside the transfer station gates as they leave town.
Now they can keep their recycling separate and drop it off at the same time.
It's so easy to do, that I'm sure most people will take a couple of minutes to recycle instead of sending everything to the landfill," Ms Coutts said.
The after-hours drop off accepts glass, plastics 1 to 7 (check the triangle on the bottom), paper, cardboard and cans.
Wastebusters staff ask that people please put the materials through the right holes.
The recycling centre is open between 9am and 4pm every day except Christmas Day, Good Friday and Anzac Day morning.
